Pigskin Holiday

In just over three hours, two of the biggest machines will meld in one entertainment extrvagana.

No, not the Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Arizona Cardinals.

I’m talking about the biggest mid-winter holiday, the Super Bowl, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

My team, the Philadelphia Eagles, aren’t in it this year. Normally I would have still invited some people over and cooked up something good. I had been planning to do a chicken and andioulle sausage chili. Unfortunately….after I thought I was getting better from this damn cold yesterday, I woke up with a fever and chills and have spent most of the day buried under blankets. No cooking for me.

But I still thought I’d share some football-related photography with you that I did during the 2007 season. My brother-in-law Eric invited me along to a game a The Linc in Philly and the tickets were gooooooooood. As I approached the gate, though, I wasn’t sure if they would allow my camera bag in. But they did and I was able to get off some good shots, especially with Canon 75-300mm lens.
(Note: On this particular game, the Eagles were wearing throwback jerseys of the 1930’s when they were the Frankford Yellowjackets – Frankford is a section of Philly- Why the unis? 1933 – Frankford Yellowjackets’ franchise in the NFL awarded to syndicate headed by Bert Bell and Lud Wray for $2500. Club christened “Eagles” in honor of the symbol of the New Deal’s National Recovery Act. Eagles and Chicago Bears play in Philadelphia’s first Sunday game (Nov. 12) at Baker Bowl. Game ends in a 3-3 tie.)

While the action on the field was good (Eagles put up 50 on that very warm September day), I also liked what I caught away from the action.

And possibly my favorite of the whole day…Dave the on-field security, apparently likes his job. I would too if I got to stand in front of NFL cheerleaders on game day.

There is a sad note to this post. As my friend The Geek Whisperer always implores his readers to practice safe computing….I didn’t practive safe image saving. Not sure how it happened, or when, but I can’t seem to find my source files from this. Not sure if they got accidentally deleted or if I left them on another laptop. In any case, I have about 17 shots from this game, though I know I shot way more. So, friends, don’t forget to backup and backup some more.

Oh, and one last thing (well, maybe not) about Bruce and E Street. He’s taken some heat for releasing a Greatest Hits package to just Wal*Mart and has admitted that was a mistake. He’s also taken some heat for even playing the Super Bowl. Why deny them? It’s undeniably a cool thing to do. And he’s honest enought to admit “Well, we released a new album this week, so it’s good timing.” Still, most people know that, even at 59 years old, the band regulary does 2 1/2 hour shows, if not longer. What’s it going to be like to do a 12 minute set?

“It was very challenging to try and get that exact 12 minutes. I found that in a funny way it was very freeing. O.K., these are your boundaries, so put everything that you have into just this box,” he said. “If you do it right, you should feel the tension of it wanting to spread beyond that time frame. But it can’t.”

And this from his Super Bowl Press Conference:At one point, when someone asked him how he planned to pack all of the intensity of a three-hour Bruce show into a 12-minute halftime show, he went into a classic meandering Bruce story. Bruce asked people to imagine You were going to a Springsteen show at the Meadowlands, but then you got lost. So you stopped at a bar, to ask for directions. And right then bar got held up. The police arrived and settled things down. And when you finally were able to get out of the bar, you started driving feverishly, but then you missed the exit, and so you had to drive around New Jersey, looking for you way back. And after finally finding your way back, you pull into the Meadowlands and you rush into the stadium, and you get there after the three hour show had been going on for two hours and 48 minutes.

Living here…missing an exit on the NJ Turnpike is NOT hard to fathom….and then driving all over trying to get back to that exit. True stuff…